1st bike, 1st build CB650

Hey,

Picked up my first bike last Saturday, I've not even got my license yet! Plan is to rebuild the CB650 while I get my license so when I pass I can have a nice shiny cafe racer to ride!

It's the "ugly duckling" of the CB family doesn't seem to be a popular bike for a cafe racer but I picked it up for £350 so not bad. I know the exhaust isn't standard and those wheels are less than great but I'm not too fussed with originality.....and this is a longer term project!!



So I got to stripping it down, I like the top lines of the frame should look good with a cafe racer style seat.



Carbs out, had a quick look at them and noticed one of them has had a bit of a bodge performed on it.....is this fixable or something that doesn't need fixing?





By Monday afternoon I was down to this....Got some work to do on the wiring loom which I'm going to start looking at tomorrow, been away for a few days so wasn't able to get any more done. I almost didn't want to go away because I wanted to do more work on the bike! lol



I was having a nightmare trying to start the bike when I got it back. I took a closer look and took the fuel pipe off the tank and got no fuel out at all. Checked in the tank and there was fuel in there, when I took the tank off I could hear something rattling around in there. I tied some nuts onto a piece of string and gave that a shake with warm water in the tank about 5 times...this was what came out. I believe that's varnished petrol, where it's obviously been left sitting for a while with petrol in the tank.



I've not seen any rust but there's still more varnished petrol in there that I can hear rattling about is there anything I can use that would chemically break that down so I can drain it all out properly?

There will be more updates soon hopefully, but my week off work is nearly finished now. Work gets in the way of all my hobbies!! lol

I like those CB650's they look like a good place to start.

When I got a new tank for my CB550 I had a solid mass of petrol residue inside it, I actually had to cut and chisel so that I could get it out through the petrol cap. I used POR 15 kit on it which not only got rid of the left over residue and surface rust but cleaned and sealed the tank.

Nice solid looking bike to start a project with, like the looks of that. On the petrol 'varnish' side have you thought about thinners or even leaving some fresh petrol in for a few days?

Hey, no I haven't actually might give that a go first then if that's no good give a POR 15 kit a go as suggested by Stidds.

Just having a look at the carbs this morning see if I can clean those up a bit. how far do you guys normally go with the dismantling? The Clymers manual I'm using doesn't seem to advise going much further than the top cover, float bowl, float, main jet and pilot screw.

Thanks for the help, I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions along the way! lol

Generally with carbs I dimantle everything I can get at, clean in carb-cleaner or Gunk then dry and reassemble, I only work on one at a time and I try not to split multiple carbs from each other unless absolutely necessary.

Welcome to the cb650 club. Good luck with your project, and more importantly, your test

Quick update on what's been happening, after spending a day looking at a box full of bits with an expression on my face not to dissimilar to I decided to start with the front forks which I am polishing in stead of the old flaky black paint they had on before. Here's the result of my first pass with the polishing. There's a couple of areas that need more work done but they are heading in the right direction. Also I've polished up the handlebar clamp which you can see in the pic below. My fuse box cover was black plastic are there any suppliers out there that sell aluminium fuse covers or is it something that needs to be fabricated?



That horrible yellow paint is nearly gone from the tank now, found a couple small patches of filler under the paint put no holes or rust so far!



I've taken all the PVC wrap off the wiring loom so I can get to everything and make a few changes. The rear lights weren't working when I got the bike so I need to troubleshoot what's going wrong there. As other people have done I plan to move the battery to the back of the bike under the seat cowling and then put in a blade fuse box in. That will lead me onto my next job of fabricating the seat and cutting all the tabs and brackets off the frame that aren't needed. No idea what I'm doing with that but I'm sure I'll work it out!

Those fork legs look great, keep up the good work Dan! Don't know about alloy fuse boxes, but if you're hiding them under the seat hump will it matter?

Cheers. It's boring work but I just do an hour at a time, leave them then come back another time and do some more.....slowly slowly catchy monkey and all that.

Very good point!! I can just get some alu sheet and make a blanking plate to replace the old fuse cover to tidy things up a bit. Cheers mate.

More paint stripping on the petrol tank last night and then some other bit's and pieces that needed cleaning up.

Then out came the grinder and a metal cutting disk! Not a scooby what I'm doing from this point in really on the seat so I think it will be off for another read of IED's thread for his CX500 build!

Self-build seats are a real art form, but I'm not that artistic so I got a generic 'Rickmann' style cafe seat off E-bay and cut it down from 2 seater to single.

I'd advise holding off with the cutting wheel until you've got your seat and trial fitted it, then you can grind away to your heart's content, think on, it's easier to take off than to weld back on!

looking good keep it up (unlike me)

Started doing some work on a seat this weekend. First bash at this, I've been doing plenty of reading through posts on here and other articles on the internet to get a rough idea of what I'm doing.

Roughed out a base in cardboard, then covered with tape and then a coat of PVA glue let that set and applied some wax to the top, so I can get the fiberglass off when it sets





This was what I was left with when I finished.....pretty pleased with it overall! Needs a bit more work to strengthen it up bit on the whole it's pretty good.



Then I started to look at the cowling where I plan to hide the battery and fuse box etc...So this is what I've ended up with glued some blocks of craft foam together so I can get the shape sanded and then a light skim of body filler.







What do you all think of the cowling is it a bit on the big side, does it look ok? I think it looks pretty good but not sure if I should try and get it a little bit smaller at the back or not? Cheers!

Looks reet to me, plus when it has been upholstered it won't look as big.

Mig wrote:

Looks reet to me

For the benefit of our non-lancastrian friends on here, what Mig is trying to say is ...it meets with his approval.

haha, thanks for the translation! That's a good point MIG was forgetting that there will be a bit of upholstery on there which will make it looks a bit smaller.

A little update just in case everyone was thinking I've quit on the project already. The last week or so I've been working on the seat hump, you know the drill sanding sanding sanding. Just dropped some primer on there pretty pleased with how it's looking so far!





It's obvious to say that those results are largely due to the clinically clean working environment....

Cut some of the un-needed brackets off the frame need to find someone to bend some tube to complete the rear of the frame. Then the frame can go off for powder coating...Once that primers has dried off I'll get cracking on the engine me thinks! Which is the bit I've been looking forward to.

I've decided to send the engine off for aqua blasting....First time attempting anything like this so I'm not really sure how far I have to break the engine down?

This is where I have got to, do I need to go further than this? Could the pistons be removed then the rest masked up? Cheers!

Sorry to throw a spanner in the works, but if you intend to aquablast/ vapour blast you will need to do a complete strip down to the bare cases. If you go down this route. PLEASE make sure you bag and label every nut bolt and bearing, making sure you note which is the top and bottom shell bearings on the crank including which journal they are in and big ends. Also the front and back of the con rods. I would also replace all the seals while your at it. It's a big job if you have never done this before. Perhaps putting the cylinders and head back on and steam clean instead.
Sounds like I am trying to put you off. LOL.
If you do aquablast make sure you jet wash the cases afterwards taking care to get in all the holes and oil ways, dry off with compressed air and apply plenty WD40 and blow off with comp air again. Phew.

haha!! Never apologise for throwing a spanner in the works...I'd rather know now than later on down the line when I've already buggered everything up!

My problem here is I want rid of the black paint on the engine. I certainly don't fancy trying to strip it myself, would shot blasting be an alternative and then powder coat silver afterwards or have I got to strip down to the bare cases either way? I always try to go with the attitude that if you don't try these things then you'll never learn how to do them, but at the same time bit's of an engine in a box aren't much use to me! lol

Same applies to this route aswell. Sorry!
Get a good manual ( clymers) and study it. If you think you can cope with stripping the motor then give it a go. It's not rocket science, you just need some patience and be orginized. Oh and very clean. And I don't mean do it in your best Sunday clothes!!!

haha Well that makes the decision for me then, I'm not putting that engine back in with that tatty black paint on it. First things first tomorrow night, tidy the work area then get cracking.

Already got the clymers manual....bought that before I had the bike lol. Looks like I'll have some reading for the commute into work tomorrow!

Thanks for the advice mate!

Zip seal freezer bags. Last tip of the nite.

Cheers, bought 150 of those off ebay before I started and have been using those to bag things up. Just to show off I've been writing on the bag what's in there, and the page number in the clymers manual that references the bags contents! lol

Good lad!